Four blue.

One white.

Four blue.

One white.

Then four blue again.

“Rebecca made this pattern.”

Eli stared.

“No.”

“She taught my sister.”

“Rebecca couldn’t weave.”

“She learned.”

“From whom?”

“My mother.”

The answer hit him harder than he expected.

Rebecca had lived with him for twelve years.

They had known each other fifteen.

He knew how she took her coffee.

He knew she hated thunder but loved rain.

He knew she folded letters twice before putting them away.

He knew she slept with one foot outside the blanket, even in winter.

And yet apparently she had known an Apache woman well enough to learn beadwork.

Without ever telling him.

“When?”

Tazha returned the bracelet.

“Many years.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It will.”

“When?”

“After sun goes down.”

Eli’s patience snapped.

“No. Right now.”

Tazha looked past him.

“You have visitors.”

Eli turned.

A rider had appeared on the ridge.

Then another.

Then six more.

His blood went cold.

Men.

Mounted.

Approaching fast.

Tazha stood.

Every woman in the barn seemed to rise with her.

Eli reached for the rifle.

“Stay here.”

Tazha caught his sleeve.

“They want us.”

“Who?”

She did not need to answer.

The lead rider crested the hill.

Even at three hundred yards, Eli recognized the broad gray hat.

Sheriff Harlan Rusk.

The same man who had brought him the news of Rebecca’s death.

The same man who had stood beside him during the burial.

The same man who had poured whiskey into Eli’s coffee afterward and said, Some grief is too large to carry sober.

Behind Harlan rode seven men.

Not deputies.

Ranch hands.

Guns visible.

Eli felt the world shift.

“Why is Harlan Rusk coming here?”

Tazha’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Because he knows we reached you.”

Harlan Rusk dismounted in Eli’s yard like a man arriving at property he already owned.

He was fifty-seven now, large through the shoulders, with a silver beard cut square beneath his jaw. His badge flashed in the morning sun.

The men behind him remained mounted.

Eli counted Winchester rifles.

Four.

Shotguns.

Two.

Revolvers.

All of them.

“Harlan.”

“Eli.”

Rusk’s eyes moved toward the barn.

Twenty-five Apache women were impossible to hide.

His jaw tightened.

“Well,” he said. “Seems you collected yourself some trouble.”

“They needed water.”

“So does a rattlesnake.”

Eli’s face hardened.

“Don’t.”

Rusk lifted his hands.

“No offense meant.”

“It sounded like offense.”

“Then take it how you like.”

Rusk walked to the well and looked down.

“You let all of them drink?”

“Yes.”

“Generous.”

“My water.”

Rusk glanced at him.

“About that.”

Something in the way he said it made Eli feel cold despite the heat.

“What?”

Rusk pulled folded paper from his coat.

“I was coming out this week anyway.”

“For what?”

“County survey.”

Eli took the paper.

A map.

Lines.

Property divisions.

Official seals.

One red mark passed directly across his ranch.

“What is this?”

“Dry Hollow Water Company filed claim to the lower aquifer.”

Eli looked up.

“You can’t file claim on my well.”

“You own the ground. Water rights are another matter.”

“Since when?”

“Since territorial law became more complicated than fence posts.”

Eli gave the paper back.

“Who owns the company?”

Rusk smiled.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Solomon Rusk.”

Eli’s stomach dropped.

Harlan’s older brother.

The richest cattleman in three counties.

A man with ten thousand head, four ranches, and enough political friends in Prescott to make inconvenient laws disappear.

Eli stared at Harlan.

“So this isn’t sheriff business.”

“Everything involving twenty-five armed hostiles becomes sheriff business.”

“They aren’t armed.”

“Not where you can see.”

Eli stepped closer.

“They’re women dying of thirst.”

“Eli.”

Harlan’s tone changed.

Almost gentle.

“You’re grieving still. I understand that. More than anybody.”

“Don’t use Rebecca.”

“I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“Then tell your men to leave.”

Harlan sighed.

“Tazha!”

The lead woman appeared in the barn doorway.

At the sight of her, Harlan’s expression lost all softness.

“Come out.”

She remained where she was.

“Sheriff.”

“You speak English better than you did last year.”

“You lie better than you did last year.”

Several of Rusk’s men shifted uneasily.

Eli looked from one to the other.

“You two know each other.”

Harlan ignored him.

“You stole property belonging to Solomon Rusk.”

Tazha said nothing.

“What property?” Eli asked.

“Cattle.”

Tazha laughed.

One short, contemptuous sound.

Harlan’s face reddened.

“You think that’s funny?”

“No cattle.”

“Three hundred head missing.”

“No.”

“Then where are they?”

“Dead.”

Harlan took one step forward.

“Careful.”

Tazha’s eyes sharpened.

“Your brother poisoned water. Cattle drank. Cattle died.”

Silence.

Eli turned slowly toward the sheriff.

“What is she talking about?”

“Nothing.”

Tazha pointed east.

“Solomon closes springs. Digs trench. Puts bitter powder in Black Mesa seep.”

“Liar.”

“You burn homes after.”

“Enough.”

“Kill two men.”

Harlan drew his revolver.

Eli moved before thinking.

He stepped between them.

“Put it away.”

Harlan stared at him.

“Move.”

“No.”

“She just accused my brother of murder.”

“Then you arrest her and give her a trial.”

A humorless smile appeared on Harlan’s face.

“You think this is Boston?”

“I think you’re wearing a badge.”

“And I think grief has made you stupid.”

Harlan lowered the gun.

But he did not holster it.

“Tazha and the others come with me.”

“No.”

The word came from Eli before he consciously chose it.

Rusk stared.

Eli felt twenty-five pairs of eyes behind him.

He remembered three women drinking from his bucket.

He remembered Rebecca teaching their son to fold paper boats when rainwater ran beside the porch.

He remembered the wagon fire.

The sheriff’s hand on his shoulder.

The closed coffin.

His heart began beating harder.

“No,” Eli repeated.

Harlan’s eyes went flat.

“Think carefully.”

“I am.”

“You owe me.”

“I did.”

“I carried you through your wife’s death.”

“You brought me news. That isn’t ownership.”

Harlan mounted his horse.

“You have until tomorrow morning.”

“For what?”

“To send them away.”

“And if I don’t?”

Harlan settled into the saddle.

“Then when Solomon’s men come for the water claim, I won’t be able to stop what happens.”

Eli looked at the seven armed riders.

“You mean you won’t try.”

Rusk smiled without warmth.

“Same result.”

They rode away.

Tazha waited until the dust disappeared.

Then she said, “Now you understand.”

Eli looked at her.

“No.”

He tightened his hand around the bracelet.

“Now you tell me about Rebecca.”

They sat at Eli’s kitchen table.

It was the first time he had eaten there with another person in three years.

The house felt wrong with voices inside it.

Too alive.

Rebecca’s blue cup still sat on the high shelf.

Daniel’s height marks remained scratched into the doorframe.

Three feet, seven.

Three feet, nine.

Four feet.

Eli had never painted over them.

Tazha noticed.

Her eyes lingered on the lowest mark.

Then she reached into the leather pouch at her waist.

She removed a folded strip of cloth.

Inside lay a brass button.

Eli stopped breathing.

He knew that button.